Nathan Gray

Works Under 30 Seconds No.s 22 - 24

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Works Under 30 Seconds No.s 19 - 21

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Works Under 30 Seconds No.s 16-18

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Species of Spaces 2014

A preview of Species of Spaces a 5 channel video piece (10 channel audio) commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney.

Filmed over a year in the disused industrial spaces of Cockatoo Island Species of Space is a response to the monumental materiality of the island with small simple gestures and improvised actions that sound the island’s varied spaces, materials and constructions then catalogues them. So the island and its objects are read as a kind of score, their shapes and abilities suggest actions and these actions are tested against this materiality.

I'd like to thank the Biennale; it’s staff, board and sponsors and the artistic director.

This work was withdrawn because of The Biennale’s sponsorship arrangement with Transfield a company that profits from and provides material support to the Australian Government’s offshore mandatory detention of Asylum Seekers.

It is shown now because of the end of this sponsorship arrangement and in the spirit of good faith with the Biennale.

I'd like to state that I stand in solidarity with asylum seekers and their resistance against offshore mandatory detention, a policy that contravenes United Nations conventions on human rights.

Film No. 9 (Don't Worry Love) 2014

Response to Yoko Ono's score Film No. 9 (Don't Worry Love) made for Experimental Universe Curated By Other Film at the Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney 2014.

My interpretation is 3 concurrent shots stretched from 20 seconds to 9 minutes.

"Film No. 9 (Don't Worry Love) 2 hr. to 45 mins. Colour highspeed camera synchronised sound. This is a love message we send from England to all over the world and to the future. The idea was conceived from the fact when a star blinks, we only conceive it 2000 years after it's actually blinked. And that they say that the love we feel now is the love that's been conceived by some- body 2000 years ago, or that somebody in the corner of the world is sending love vibrations just to keep us in love, etc. The film will be 20 seconds each shot of people smiling and saying "don't worry love", but because the shots are done in highspeed, each smile would actually be synchronised to the highspeed motion so that what you actually hear would be a strange elongated version of "don't worry love". I hope this film will make the whole world a shade happier and rosier, and that our smile would encourage people of 2000 years later, just as the blinking of stars. It is actually a film that would be most effective if it's seen in our great, great grand- children's time. We must get a galaxy of people with strong good vibrations to smile in this film-people who represent our age."

Ball Hits Camera 2014

Please view at C3's website http://www.c3artspace.com.au/lab/project-lab-2-nathan-gray/

4 images of people playing sport, in each image a ball is about to hit the camera

Ball Hits Camera – Nathan Gray 2014 – 3:07 minute loop

Ball Hits Camera is a collection of moments of violence towards video devices, told by the devices themselves. It’s a compilation of accidental structural films where the sounds and vision is generated by the camera being struck, jostled or broken and the recording technology becomes the subject of the work. Commissioned by c3 as part of the online project lab Ball Hits Camera challenges the complacency of the viewer as objects repeatedly attempt to break the fourth wall and do the audience damage.

Queen Size

Queen Size, 2014, Plinth Projects
Nathan Gray's work for Plinth Projects, Queen Size, pays tribute to the inner spring mattress; its centrality to our lives, its difficult materiality, durability and portability and its soft horizontal contrast to the rigid verticality of the plinth.